EPOS for a Takeaway: Is a Till Legally Required in the UK?
No UK law requires a pizza takeaway to use a till or a certified EPOS. What HMRC requires is complete records of every sale, kept for years, and, if you are VAT-registered, digital records filed through Making Tax Digital software. Since 6 April 2026, sole traders with qualifying income over £50,000 also send quarterly updates under MTD for Income Tax.
Is a till legally required in the UK?
No. Unlike France, Italy or Germany, the UK has no fiscal till law: no certified software, no tamper-proof memory, no device registered with HMRC. You could legally run a pizza van with a card reader and a notebook. What the law does care about is your records, and that is where most small takeaways get caught out, not on the hardware.
| Your situation | Till required? | What HMRC actually requires |
|---|---|---|
| Sole trader, turnover under £50,000, not VAT-registered | No | Record all takings daily; keep records 5 years after the 31 January filing deadline |
| Sole trader, qualifying income over £50,000 | No | MTD for Income Tax since April 2026: digital records + quarterly updates |
| VAT-registered (taxable turnover over £90,000, or voluntary) | No | MTD for VAT: digital records, returns filed through compatible software |
| Limited company | No | Company records for 6 years; MTD for VAT if registered |
HMRC guidance on record keeping, MTD for VAT and MTD for Income Tax, October 2026.
Making Tax Digital: what it means for a takeaway
MTD for VAT
Every VAT-registered business has been in MTD for VAT since April 2022. Your records must be kept digitally and your returns sent through compatible software, with a digital link between the two: no retyping your till’s Z-report totals into the HMRC website. Most EPOS systems export to Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent, which do the filing.
MTD for Income Tax
Since 6 April 2026, sole traders and landlords whose qualifying income was over £50,000 must keep digital records and send quarterly updates. The threshold drops to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. Note the trap: qualifying income is turnover, not profit. A pizza van taking £1,000 a week is already over £50,000 even if it clears £15,000.
HMRC will not give penalty points for late quarterly updates in 2026/27, but you cannot file the year-end return until all four are in, and from 2027/28 each missed deadline earns a point, with a £200 penalty at four points.
VAT on pizza: hot takeaway, eat-in and delivery
What a cheap EPOS for a pizza shop costs
| Option | Typical cost | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Card reader app (Square, SumUp) | Reader around £20–£50 + about 1.7% per card payment, free basic POS app | Vans, markets, small counters |
| Loyverse on a tablet | Free core app; paid add-ons from around £20/month | Single shop on a budget |
| Square for Restaurants / Epos Now | Around £50–£100/month + hardware | Eat-in with tables, several terminals |
| Full kitchen setup (KDS, printers) | £1,000–£3,000 hardware + subscription | Busy shops doing 150+ orders a night |
Public UK price lists and pizzeria forum reports, 2025–2026. Indicative, check current offers.
Our view: for a single pizza takeaway, a card reader app plus accounting software ticks every legal box. The expensive tier is only worth it if you need a kitchen display or table service. Don’t pay £100 a month so that the till can take online orders. That is usually the weakest part of the package.
Pizza vans: a till that works without signal
Festival fields and village greens have no 4G at 7pm on a Saturday. Choose a reader with an offline mode: Square, for example, stores card payments offline and processes them once you reconnect, within 24 hours. The risk (a declined card you only discover later) is yours, so set a sensible per-payment limit. Your sales log must still be complete, so check the app records cash sales offline too.
Start a pizza van: the complete guide
Keep the till and online ordering separate
Once you know the till’s legal job is just a clean sales record, the question becomes what does the rest of the work. Most EPOS ordering add-ons handle a Friday rush badly: no limit on orders per time slot, so thirty pizzas land on 7:30pm and your oven only does twelve. Keep your ordering tool separate and make sure every online and phone order still ends up in your records, whether rung through the till or exported.
Managing the pizzeria rush with 15-minute slots
Checklist before you buy
- MTD-compatible export to your accounting software, or a direct integration.
- Offline mode, tested: switch off the wifi, take ten payments, reconnect.
- VAT rates set per item, including zero-rated cold items.
- Data export of every sale (CSV), so you can leave without losing six years of records.
- Contract length. Leased hardware on a 36- or 48-month contract is the most common regret on UK forums.
- Card fees, compared per transaction, not just the monthly price.
FAQ
Does the UK require a certified EPOS?
No. There is no certified-till scheme in the UK. You must keep complete digital records if you are VAT-registered (MTD for VAT) and, since April 2026, if you are a sole trader with qualifying income over £50,000 (MTD for Income Tax).
Can I run a pizza van with just a card reader?
Yes, as long as cash takings are recorded every day too. Most card reader apps let you log cash sales, which gives you one complete daily record.
How long do I keep till records?
Sole traders: at least five years after the 31 January deadline for that tax year. Limited companies and VAT records: six years.
Do online orders need to go through the till?
Not literally, but they must be in your records. Export them or ring them up so your daily takings are complete and match your bank deposits.
How to take online orders in a pizzeria